A payment gateway is the technology layer that connects a merchant’s booking system, website or virtual terminal to the acquirer and processor. It collects payment data securely, sends authorisation requests, returns responses, and increasingly handles tokenisation, recurring billing, 3DS challenges and alternative payment methods. Some gateways are stand-alone; others are bundled with an acquirer or processor.
Travel payments glossary
Payment gateway
The technology layer that connects a merchant to the acquirer and processor.
Why it matters in travel
Travel gateways have to handle the specific shapes of travel commerce — high-value bookings, deposits and balances, agent screens, payment links, refunds against cancellation terms, multi-currency and cross-border flows. A gateway that does not understand booking context forces finance to rebuild it in spreadsheets.
A travel business that runs on a generic gateway usually does not realise the cost until the operation starts to scale. Every booking-shaped event the gateway does not understand — deposit, balance, ATOL evidence, supplier payment timing — becomes a manual workaround in finance. The cost of that workaround compounds as volume grows.
The teams that get gateway choice right evaluate against travel-specific scenarios: what happens on a balance against a tokenised card six months later, what happens on a refund against a partly-used itinerary, what happens to chargeback evidence on a long-lead booking. The teams that evaluate only on headline rate and integration speed regret the decision around year two.
How felloh helps
felloh acts as a booking-aware payment gateway, keeping every payment, refund and settlement attached to the underlying booking ledger so the operational story does not break when the channel changes.
Where this shows up in payment collection.
Payment gateway touches more than one workflow at felloh. Start with the pages most travel teams reach for next.
- Payment Collection
Card, open banking, payment links, deposits and instalments — captured against the booking.
Explore - Payment Links
Shareable, authenticated payment links so customers pay against a specific booking without keying card details.
Explore - Embedded Checkout
Booking-aware checkout that keeps card data out of your systems and the payment trail tied to the booking.
Explore
More on collecting payments in travel.
Real-world context from the felloh team and customers, written for travel finance and operations.
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UpdatesSetting up payment links manually
See how felloh connects all of your payments, cards, open banking and direct deposits with your bookings
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UpdatesMaking multi channel payments work across travel systems
Multi-channel friction in travel usually sits between booking, payment and finance systems. Connected payments keep finance teams in control.
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Connect the dots.
See how payments, settlement, refunds and reporting evidence connect around every booking.